


Lifting of the Spirits

by Piff



Series: The Dead and the Oblivious [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Bad Pick-Up Lines, Jack needs to get laid, Koz needs more coffee, M/M, Obliviousness, Writers live in their own little worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 12:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1387639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piff/pseuds/Piff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kozmotis Pitchiner finally found the perfect place to write his books; a quaint little house out in the country far from all the noise of the city. It had a large windowed study over looking a sunny field, brand new internet-lines laid down, and a sexually frustrated ghost. Wait... what?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifting of the Spirits

“Jack? I’m home!”

Kozmotis Pitchiner tossed his mail onto the kitchen table, letting it slide across the worn wood. His laptop case was much more tenderly set down, and his coat was thrown over a chair. 

Dragging fingers through his hair with a sigh, Koz opened up the fridge to stare at the meager offerings.

His choices seemed to be between ordering take-out, for the fourth night in a row, or taking his chances with the jug of milk and a bowl of cereal.

….Chinese it was.

“You know, of all the people I’ve met, you’re certainly the most reluctant to cook actual food. I mean, there was even a hermit who stayed here for a few weeks that cooked his own meals. Beans and hotdogs maybe, but he still cooked.”

Koz closed the fridge and glared at the pale youth now sitting at the table, chin propped on one hand and twirling a pencil between the fingers of the other.

“Between you and my editor, I haven’t had the time to go grocery shopping.”

“Yeah, yeah. Blame the dead boy for your bad habits. Not like I’ve been forcibly keeping you inside the house and away from the market.”

“Grocery stores. They’re called grocery stores.”

“Whatever. And hey, expect some packages to be delivered in the next few days. Overnight shipping is a god send.”

Kozmotis sighed, digging his phone out of a coat pocket and scrolling through the filed numbers for the Asian King’s Kitchen. Yes, he had all the places that delivered food saved to his phone. Don’t judge him.

“I’m going to go broke supporting the shopping habits of a ghost.”

Jack grinned at him. “If you didn’t want me to spend your money, you wouldn’t have given me your credit card number.”

True.

“Just as long as you follow the rules. Ah! Yes, I’d like to make an order for delivery…” Koz wandered off to the living room, small but cozy and surprisingly free of dust since Kozmotis didn’t think he’d been poking around with a duster any time in the last week. Month. Months. 

Ordering food for one person was quick and easy. Swiping the phone to home screen, and sensing Jack trailing behind him, Kos smirked a little and pointed at the bookcase. “Missed a spot.”

“Hey, you want a perfectly clean house, hire a maid. And if she’s one of those in the skimpy little dresses, I’ll even promise not to scare her off. Make sure she has long legs too, short skirts always look better with long legs.” 

Jack was always careful when walking around Kozmotis, keeping an eye out for any chance the man might walk through him even by accident. It made both of them... uncomfortable.

So while Koz let himself drop into the chair he’d dragged along for most of his college and bumpy free-from-college years, Jack perched himself on the back of the couch like a bleached out vulture. 

“…So?”

“So?” Kozmotis knew damned well what Jack was asking but he was in the mood to be difficult. He was hungry, he was tired from dealing with people all day, and he was just flat out tired because being up all night preparing the final manuscript of his latest book was exhausting.

“So how did they like the changes in the book jackass?”

“Such language. A good thing my daughter will not be visiting until summer vacation… I should wash your mouth out with soap.” Koz smirked to himself and wait for it… wait for it…

“You can wash me all right, cause I’m such a dirty, dirty boy.” With the exaggerated leer and waggling eyebrows and everything. Jack’s horrible innuendos never failed to make Kozmotis laugh, even if it made the ghost smug and look up even more of them to store for later.

This was Kozmotis Pitchiner’s life. A small, shabby house where he spent his days pouring dreams and ideas onto paper, while being harassed by a translucent, sexually frustrated, ghost. 

He was pretty content. 

 

\-------------------------

 

He was standing on the bridge of a spaceship as all hell broke loose around him. The giant window ahead showed the view of a pretty blue and green planet, surrounded by more ships that fire on one another. Next to him the Queen was saying-

_“Kozmotis Pitchiner, explain this.”_

The man blinked at the empty space in front of him, ears ringing with the echoes of alarms and shouting. His hands had jerked away from the laptop before the lid could slam down on them and he found himself flexing them cautiously, because maybe the pain just hadn’t caught up yet. 

Finally, he looked up to the angry face of his wife, who was standing there with a sheaf of papers.

“…huh?” He had such a way with words, no wonder he had a dozen awards and a firm place in the New York Times Best Sellers list.

“I want you to explain to me why we have been billed for two hundred dollars worth of porn. PORN. And I can’t believe the names of these websites! I’ve put up with a lot of stupid things Kozmotis, but this will NOT be one of them.”

Part of his mind still stuck among the stars and the battle of the century, all Koz could think to say was “…I don’t watch porn.”

“Seriously? That’s what you’re going with? Then I suppose you think our six year old daughter has been browsing... “Busty Babes in Toyland”? “Boys to Men?” GAY porn? This is disgusting!” The papers were tossed onto the sleek, shiny laptop, forcing Koz to grab them before they slid off onto the floor. 

He was still having a hard time focusing on the Real World and his lovely wife (which just happened to be the number one cause of their arguments these days…) and some of the names on the list were actually kind of funny. 

“Don’t you DARE laugh at this Kozmotis! I will not stand for this! You lock yourself up in your office all day, and then all night, and this is what I find out you’re doing instead of ‘working’?” she actually used air quotes for that. Truly. Air quotes.

Sarah Beth threw her hands up in the air as he just continued to look amused, “I can’t TALK to you! It’s like you’re a brick wall!”

“Nonsense, they don’t use bricks in space.”

One wordless scream of frustration later, the door to his office slammed shut and he was finally, FINALLY, allowed to get back to his War. Tricky things, wars. Too much detail or too little detail could screw the whole thing up. It required a delicate balance…

Koz frowned at his handful of papers as he went to set them aside, the conversation finally leaking through the layers of people and screams and PEW PEW PEWs.

“…huh.”

Obviously, there had been a mistake made. He would sort it out.

After he finished this chapter.

 

\-------------------------------------------

 

“Grab me a plate will you Jack?”

“Oooo will I be serving you tonight?”

“…just grab me a plate. I’m too old to sit around eating right out of the box.”

“But I thought authors were supposed to live outside of the box?”

Koz rolled his eyes and plucked the plate out of the air as it floated towards him. He dumped good portions of the Chinese food onto it, and rummaged around in a drawer for a fork. 

“Oh come on, use chopsticks. It’s hilarious!”

“I want to EAT my food, not wear it.”

“What if I was wearing it?”

Kozmotis had to stop a moment and imagine that. …no. Ghosts and food didn’t mix well. For one, it’d fall right through Jack’s body. For two, it’d get -cold-. Shaking his head, he moved around the table to turn on the light in the dining room. Using real plates and cutlery? Might as well sit at the table too. 

All he had to do next was to grab a cup of coffee and dinner was served! Koz stared at the happily humming coffee pot for a few seconds, feeling wistful.

Coffee, his drug of choice and addiction, had ruined his marriage. Because of coffee it had taken Kozmotis a full week to realize his wife had left AND taken their daughter to her parent’s house.

The one thing that could pull the author away from his book was a hot cup of highly sugared caffeine, and his wife had had the glorious habit in making sure the coffee pot was always on. 

When she was in a good mood, the coffee was traded in for kisses.

When she was in a bad mood, she let it grow cold and empty.

So Kozmotis not realizing that his wife was not only angry, but gone, he hadn’t been forced to look for her and call to talk about whatever it was that had upset her so badly. And…Well. By that point, Koz was firmly and without question deep in the doghouse.

It wouldn’t be fare to blame the fuss on Jack, who had only been trying to be helpful by making sure the coffee pot was always full and fresh when Koz needed his refill. 

“Hey, no long faces, it’s time to celebrate! You’re book is all finished and... things... whatever stuff… happen now right?”

“…yeah.” Koz stopped staring at the coffee and poured a cup, taking it to the table along with the plate of still-steaming food. Was harder to shake the regret though, it trailed after him like a teething puppy.

“…hey. Hey. You know how they say the largest organ on a human body is skin?”

Koz was going to regret this, but... “…yes?”

“Not in my case.” Jack waggled his eyebrows at Kozmotis cheerfully.

“What does… where do you FIND these horrible lines?” But he was laughing, depressing thoughts forgotten.

 

\-------------------------------------------

 

Bedtime was special.

It was a little cramped on the small, pink bed but they managed it. Koz sitting with his back against the headboard and his daughter leaned back against his chest. He’d pulled the blankets up under her chin because it got remarkably cold in the house at times. 

Maybe he should call an electrician. Plumber? Someone.

“How did Princess Seraphina escape the pirates?”

“Well she was a very clever girl and knew to look for weak points in the system. The pirates only saw a little girl, but we both know Seraphina was a warrior trained by the best and was always, always reading so she knew many different things like-“

There was a cough by the door.

Koz looked up and found his wife standing there, arms folded across her chest. “It’s an hour past her bedtime. She has -school- tomorrow.”

“Ah... right... tomorrow Princess. You’ll find out how she escaped tomorrow.” 

“Noo…I wanna know now!”

“Emily Jane, you were supposed to be asleep an hour ago, don’t argue with me.”

“…yes mama.”

He untangled himself from the blanket and the little girl, tucking the various stuffed animals under the blanket with her so all their heads lined up in a neat row. “Tomorrow. And maybe when McNeil visits next week, we can tempt him into illustrating the adventures of Princess Seraphina.”

“Cool!”

Nightlight in place, door closed to a slender crack, and Kozmotis found himself looking at his watch. He could get in a few good hours of writing before passing out, and Queen Amalia was just about to abdicate her throne in favor of her younger sister bec-

“Kozmotis Pitchiner, you take one step towards that study and I will unplug each and every electronic you own and hide the cords.”

-orrrr he could spend some quality time with his wife before she went homicidal.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Coffee?”

A scathing reply of “at this time of night?” nixed that idea quickly. And he was getting the idea she was upset with him.

Koz decided that an olive branch was in order. “Your birthday is coming up soon, anything special you’d like to do? I’ve only got a couple chapters to go and then I’m all yours for the summer.”

“My birthday was last weekend, and I spent it trying to get the house unpacked.”

“Ah.” He eyed his stone-faced wife warily. “…you’re not still upset over the porn thing are you? It has to have been a mist-“

It seemed a bit counterproductive to slam the door in his face, after having just informed him that he better not go back to work. Kozmotis pinched the bridge of his nose and squinched his eyes shut. He didn’t remember Sarah Beth to be so short tempered, perhaps he really had been working too much lately.

He could fix that.

…tomorrow.

Koz glanced at the firmly closed door, and eased away towards his study, realizing now that it was the only place still left with moving boxes. 

And- …huh. That was odd. He was sure he’d turned the laptop off when he’d gone to tuck in Emily Jane for the night. 

 

\---------------------------------------------

 

“Internet of course. I don’t know how I survived before the internet. And your laptop.”

“You didn’t survive at all, you’re dead.”

“Harsh man, harsh. And I’m only mostly dead; some parts of me still rise up very well.”

“You never stop, do you?” He couldn’t keep the amusement out of his voice, and of course that only egged Jack on further.

“Nope. I have hundreds more. Like... if you were coffee, you’d be espresso. Cuz you’re so fine.”

“…right. McNeil liked the changes on the last chapter, so you can be smug about that. He said people like knowing where characters go on past the ending of the book, and it rounded the story out nicely. So yes, the ending HAD been too abrupt. We are now headed for printing and he’s lined up some interviews and events for me to make myself known at.”

Kozmotis hated the book signings and parties. Would much rather stay at home and write more. So far it was a compromise between the two, he’d do them but only nearby. If it involved hours of travel, not happening. 

“Wish I could go with you.”

Koz looked up from his plate at the sigh. His ghostly house-mate was sitting on the edge of the table, leaning back on his hands. Slightly translucent, Kozmotis could see the vague lines of furniture through his pale body. A tall, slender youth that he’d guess to be just about the age to leave for college.

Pick-up lines aside, he was an intelligent, handsome young man and Koz didn’t mind at all sharing the house with Jack. Or rather, he was glad Jack was willing to share with HIM.

“Well, I have good news for you. My next interview will be right here at the house. Which does mean I’ll have to ask you to behave. Don’t scare the journalist away, don’t scare her at all. Last thing I need is the reputation of a mad man right before my book comes out.”

“What will I get in return?”

“I won’t call an exorcist.”

“Oooo, he gunna rub me out?” 

“…I’ll put you in my next book.” Koz smirked at him over his coffee. Jack had been begging to be featured in one of his books for weeks now. And exactly like he thought would happen, Jack nearly fell off the table as he whipped around to face Kozmotis. 

“Wait, seriously? In a real book, not one of the bedtime stories you make for Princess Seraphina? To be printed?”

“Yeah. Behave for the reporter, and I’ll put you in my next book.”

Piece of cake. Jack would be an absolute angel now, Koz was sure of it.

“As ME right? Not some little sleepy gnome like you did with Mc-someone, right?”

“As you. Annoying little smart-ass fresh from the academy, a junior officer aboard spaceship The Guardian. “

“-Awesome-.”

“IF you behave.”

“Baby, I’ll behave so well you’ll write a whole SERIES of books about me.”

 

\------------------------------------------------

 

“Can’t we discuss this? Sweetheart, I-“

“No. Just... no. I’m tired of being the wife to a man who’s never there. Who’s always locked away in his office, always living off in his head. I need a HUSBAND, Kozmotis, not a... ghost.” 

He wanted to laugh, looking at his cup filled with coffee that he had certainly not made. And with his wife out of the house, she had certainly not made. 

Nor had he washed the dishes, collected the mail, or watered the plants. 

“Sweetheart, I’m nearly done with the book. Just needs a couple revisions and then-“

“And then you’ll start on the next one. And then the next one. You never stop writing, always taking notes and collecting files of information.”

“But-“

“You’re a good man Kozmotis, and a great father. You’re just a lousy husband. Finish your book, and come see us for Christmas. We can talk then.”

“But-“

“I have to go. We’ll talk… later. Goodbye Kozmotis.”

“Goodnight Sarah Beth. Give the Princess my love.”

“…I will.” 

Click. 

Kozmotis gently set his cell phone on his desk, slumping back in his chair and staring out the window.

What a bright, beautiful day it was out there. He could see the brilliantly blue sky and the fluffy white clouds. He could see part of the big oak tree too, the one that shaded the western side of the house, the leaves green and plentiful and full of life.

It was beautiful.

Koz suddenly felt very lonely.

“Hey, don’t worry about it big guy. She’ll be back. With a hot number like you, how could she stay away?”

The hot coffee scalding his lap was the least of Koz’ worries.

“Who the HELL are you?”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this, it was a lot of fun. Read over and encouraged by the lovely Shinku! 
> 
> And now, I vanish for almost two weeks, barring the occasional moments of wifi. Hotels usually have wifi don't they? I may not be COMPLETELY devoid of internets while away, but no guarantees. Much <3 to you all!


End file.
